


floating is what you do (that is beautiful, that is you)

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:14:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7526956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lady-love vignette set in a bathtub.</p>
            </blockquote>





	floating is what you do (that is beautiful, that is you)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Merril Bainbridge's 'Under the Water'. Characters from Matt Mercer's glorious brain.
> 
> * * *

"Sometimes I think you love my bathtub more than you love me," Allura says, sitting down on the low wooden stool beside said tub with an elegant swish of her skirts.

Kima pops up from underneath the water, bubbles in her hair, grinning widely. "Sorry, what? I've got water in my ears." She shakes her head vigorously, spraying water everywhere by way of demonstration.

Allura looks down at the water spattered across the front of her blue silk gown, brushes it off with a quick prestidigitation, and reaches behind her own back to begin slowly undoing the line of fiddly little domed buttons.

"I could do that," Kima protests.

"You could, except you're staying in there until you're clean." Allura pauses to dunk Kima's head back under the water. Kima comes up spluttering.

"I was in a _mine_ , Allie. A _mine_. Dwarves aren't especially known for their cleanliness."

"What _do_ they do about bathing?" Allura asks with genuine curiosity, rising to her feet and wriggling her shoulders, letting the dress slip to her waist.

Kima shrugs one shoulder, wincing a little, and gazes at Allura with obvious interest in the sight before her rather than discussing dwarven bathing habits. "Don't know. I wasn't there to wash with them. I was—" She cuts the sentence off abruptly. "I love your bathtub second best. After you." She plunges back beneath the water.

Allura isn't surprised. What is already a big tub even with just her in it is a veritable lake for a halfling. She'd considered it an embarrassingly large luxury for some time, until the first time Kima had laid eyes on it and immediately demanded to use it. Considering that they'd just come back to the tower after a day of explaining to the Council of Emon exactly why they'd let an angry bear and angrier ranger chase them through town, Allura had been more than happy to comply.

(How was she supposed to know where Vex took Trinket out for his morning constitutional, anyway? She'd seen _bear_ , thought _threat_ , and anyway it was _Kima_ who'd shot him in the backside with her crossbow.)

Since then they've enjoyed the spacious tub together a number of times. This time, Allura's just glad Kima's here to use it at all.

Her own gaze flickers to Kima's discarded clothing: grubby, in tatters, and decidedly lacking in all of the armor and weaponry she's used to seeing stacked up when Kima sheds her clothes. It's reflective of Kima's body before she first got in the tub: grubby, wounded, and shockingly fragile-looking compared to the way Allura's used to seeing her.

That was two rounds of bathwater ago, or at least two rounds of prestidigitating away the built-up muck from the water and reheating it. Now that Kima's for the most part clean, Allura's prepared to get in with her. Not that she ever minds bathing together, but having seen Kima's deep flinch upon her first immersion in the water (which is a nice way of saying that Allura more or less dropped her into it), she feels better for letting her lover have some time to herself in the rejuvenating heat.

Allura finishes undressing, folding her dress and undergarments neatly on the stool, before stepping delicately into the water. Kima's surfaced again and is floating on her back, looking the picture of contentment. A far cry from when Allura had first laid eyes on her. Not that Vox Machina hadn't done their utmost to bring her back safe, but torture is torture.

"What's that look for?" Kima drifts over as Allura sits down on the underwater seat at one end of the bath, neck-deep in the gently steaming water.

"Thinking."

Kima sighs and does a slow roll, ducking under the water again and coming up with her back pressed to Allura's chest. "What happened is what happened. You can't wish it all away. I'm back now—isn't that enough?"

"I should never have let you go in the first place." Allura takes up the soap and begins circling it over Kima's shoulders, despite the fact that Kima's already soaped up and rinsed off twice. She's trying not to count the scars and note which ones are new.

"It was never a matter of whether or not you _let_ me do anything." Kima bats her hand away impatiently. "You know as well as I do that I go where I'm needed. And this was a thing that I absolutely needed to do."

"Yes, I know. 'The phase spider blinks where it will, and all planes are alike to it.'" Allura can't keep a hint of bitterness out of her voice.

"Allie." Kima turns in Allura's arms and wraps her legs around Allura's waist, her arms around Allura's neck. "You know that's not true."

"I just want us to be in the same place for more than a few days."

"I suppose that was the upside of adventuring. We nearly died on a regular basis, but at least we got to spend months on end in each other's company."

"Whether we wanted to or not." Allura sighs. "Remember the winter we all got snowed into that cave and were stuck in there for five days while the blizzard kept going?"

"Which _time_?"

Allura laughs and does what she's been waiting to do since she first dropped Kima in the bath, which is to kiss her long and hard. Kima makes a pleased sound and kisses her in return, tongue tracing Allura's lower lip, urging Allura to open her mouth.

"Do you love this as much as you love my bathtub?" Allura asks when they part.

"I don't think the two are mutually exclusive," Kima answers, bending her head to nuzzle at Allura's breasts.

Allura has every intention of taking the lead on this, of treating Kima to as much attention and loving as she wants, focusing on giving rather than taking. But it's hard to communicate that the way that she wants to, given that Kima has taken the kiss as permission to drop any last hint of a façade of formality left over from being in public.

Also, she seems to have grown an extra two or three pairs of hands in the process. Allura gives up on trying to equalize the situation and just lets Kima ravage her.

"Missed you so much," Kima murmurs, one hand working between Allura's thighs, and all Allura can manage by way of a response is a shuddering sigh. "Missed _this_." Whether _this_ refers to their lovemaking or the very specific place Kima has her small fingers is unclear. Allura's brain has shut down; all there is right now is sensation, heat, and her lover pressed close against her.

She gets her own back in the end, though, bundling Kima in a thick towel and carrying her unceremoniously to the bedroom. Making love to her with lips and tongue and hands. Listening to Kima's breathy cries, so unlike her often curt public persona.

Then staving off the morning with hushed conversation until just before sunup, catching a mere hour of sleep.

Then it's back to careful public faces, and hands that don't stray (at least, not too far), and determining just how much of the future they can spend in the same place before the needs of their city, the Council, their _country_ , become more important.


End file.
